Dalmatian _cuisine_--The Emperor Diocletian--Remains of the old
palace--We make two friends--Wines of Dalmatia--Customs of the
Morlaks--A visit to Salona--A great fete--Costumes--Morlak singing.
On landing we were at once pounced upon by the Custom-house officers,
who could not quite make out our semi-military appearance. Our baggage,
however, was not examined, so our cartridges once more escaped.
Re-shouldering our guns, and handing over our blankets and saddle-bags
to a quay-loafer, we marched off to the Hotel de Ville, which we were
told is the best inn in the town. A very fair one it turned out to be,
consisting of the first and second floor of a portion of a large
desolate-looking colonnaded square, recently built by a company, whose
shareholders I believe will willingly part with their shares at the
price of issue, for they have not met with much encouragement to
continuing their work. The telegraph and post-offices, and the
restaurant of the hotel, at present monopolize the completed portion of
the square. On the other unbuilt side is a sulphur spring, not
sufficiently appreciated by the faculty of Spalato.
The restaurant adjoining the hotel is a fair one for this country, but
the cuisine of Dalmatia can hardly be recommended. The dishes presented
to the traveller are not exactly German, nor are they exactly Italian,
but combine the worst properties of the two without any of the good. On
the other hand, the rooms in this hotel are very clean and comfortable,
and the charge at this, as at all other restaurants on this coast, is
considerably lower than in most countries of Europe. Having dined, we
strolled through the town, whose nightly aspect we did not think very
much of.
Instinct led us to the principal cafe. It is in the piazza in the
centre of the town, and is greatly frequented by the Austrian officers
as well as by the local civil swells. The open-air part of the cafe is
a pleasant arbour of sub-tropical creepers. Here we smoked our
cigarettes, and sipped our iced coffee for an hour or so, amused with
the quaint costumes of the people and the lofty houses around us,
dating from the old Venetian days, as their elegant porticoes and fine
carvings plainly showed. On the wall of one house near the cafe there
are some very curious religious carvings. Eve presenting the apple to
Adam is very comic.
Spalato is a town at which one could easily pass a considerable time in
most enjoyable loafing. The old Venetian city is built within the
extensive walls of the palace of Diocletian, but the modern town has
spread considerably beyond their limits. These ancient walls formed a
useful defence against the piratical hordes that infested this coast
during the Middle Ages, till the strong arm of the Venetian Republic
swept the Adriatic of these freebooters, whose detestable excesses were
the terror of the whole maritime population.
Spalato is built on a promontory formed by the deep inlet on whose
shores is situate the old Roman city of Salona, while the large islands
of Brazza and Bua shelter the harbour from on-shore winds.
It was to this pleasant spot that the Emperor Diocletian, himself a
native of Salona, retired in the year 305, when, weary of empire, he
resigned the imperial purple. On the sea-shore, a few miles from
Salona, he built himself this magnificent palace, in which he passed
the remainder of his life without care or regret, taking great pleasure
in cultivating his garden with his own hands.
The outer walls form a square, each side of which is nearly a mile in
length. These to a great measure still exist, but the modern houses
built against and _into_ them have by no means improved their
appearance. The Cathedral of Spalato was the Pagan Temple which
Diocletian constructed in the centre of the area, and is a very
symmetrical building. Many of the columns, and also the Sphinx, which
ornament the palace, were brought here from Constantinople and Egypt.
We were awakened early the next morning by a knock at our door. On our
replying to it a pleasant-looking stout gentleman entered smiling, and
introduced himself to us as Marco Bettoni, _capitaine de long cours_.
He had heard of the arrival of two Englishmen in the town, so as he
spoke English himself, he had come to offer his services to us. A very
useful and agreeable companion he proved to be. The Dalmatians are
excellent sailors, and these retired _capitaines de long cours_ form a
most respectable element in the population. Most of the _Podestas_ or
mayors of the small villages are of this class. They are always men
who have knocked about the world, and are happy to assist travellers
in every way.
After breakfast we visited some of the lions of Spalato, in the
company of our new friend. The architecture of the narrow streets,
with their lofty balconied houses, and the ever-recurring Lion of St.
Mark carved over the archways, constantly reminded one of the old
Republic. We went to the "Porta Aurea"--the "golden gate," which
pierces the outer wall of Diocletian's palace from the north. I sat
down under a blazing sun, and managed to make a sketch of it. During
the process I was surrounded by a crowd of admiring Morlaks. When the
marble columns which supported the arches were in their places, it
must have been very beautiful. The ancient Temple of Jupiter, now the
Cathedral of Spalato, was within the precincts of the palace. It is
now surmounted by an elegant _campanile_, which was constructed after
its conversion into a Christian church. From the summit of this--200
feet above the sea--there is a charming view over the town, the
harbour, and the islands of the Adriatic beyond.
The interesting remains of this town have been so well described by
former travellers, that I will not here enter into them. Suffice to say
that Spalato offers at every step some curious relic of early Christian
as well as Pagan days, not to mention the fine Venetian buildings. In
the architecture of the palace as well as in the statuary brought from
Salona, and stored here in the public museum, one can detect the
transition state of art, and the falling off of the old classic beauty
of form.
We were introduced by our new friend to a very pleasant French
gentleman, who was of great service to us during our stay. M.
Vigneau was an _AEnologue_, a native of Bordeaux, and had come
hither to be manager of a company recently started at Spalato, for the
production of superior classes of wines. The natives of the country
were quite ignorant of the science, their wines being rough and
unpalatable--surcharged with tannin. But, under the scientific and
skilful direction of M. Vigneau, it has been proved that Dalmatia is
capable of producing excellent wines, emulating the finest vintages of
his native land. Other companies have since his attempt been started
for the like purpose, but as far as I could judge the "_Societe
AEnalogue de Dalmatie_," as the original Spalato undertaking is called,
produces the largest variety and most excellent quality of wines.
We visited the buildings of the company. It was the vintage season, and
huge butts were brimming with the ripe fruit outside the door. In the
yard two employes sat at a table purchasing the grapes, as picturesque
Morlaks--men, women, and children--bore in the purple spoil in sacks
and baskets of every size. These were weighed, and the little bundles
of money were handed over to them in return. Now and then a basket
would be refused, the quality of grape being inferior; when the wild
people would enter into a fierce discussion with many gesticulations,
but were peremptorily told to move on, as their noise was useless. The
Morlaks are civilized enough to know some of the tricks of trade spoken
of by the "divine Artemus" as common among the American manufacturers
of apple-sauce, the difference being that in the one case the bottom of
the vessel is filled with sawdust and in the other with stones.
We indulged in a feast of grapes at M. Vigneau's, and then adjourned to
his spacious cellars to try his various wines. The huge casks, which
contain enough of the rich fluid to drown the largest elephant, had
been brought in sections from Bordeaux--the natives being incapable of
constructing them. The wines we tasted were exceedingly good, and the
different varieties might pass for the best burgundies, sherries, and
ports; there is also an excellent light wine. These wines are improved
by a sea voyage. They are cheap, and need only to be introduced into
England to be appreciated and widely consumed. Indeed I am sure many of
us have unknowingly drunk and enjoyed them, for M. Vigneau told me that
not only were large quantities exported to Italy, but--especially since
the Phylloxera plague had broken out--also to France, to the Bordeaux
district itself, where doubtlessly they are blended with the native
product and sent to us under many fair-sounding Chateaux brands.
The Sclav names which the Spalato wines bear are not musical. M.
Vigneau gave me all the details and prices. These wines could be sold
in England, after paying all transport and custom expenses, at a very
low rate indeed. The company is sufficiently old for us to have tasted
and approved some choice vintages that had been twelve years or so in
bottle, and very excellent they proved.
M. Vigneau had spent a few years in England, and speaks English very
well. So between him and the kindly old sea-captain, we did not feel
ourselves at all abroad in Spalato. Without them we should not have got
on, for our knowledge of Italian was limited, and of Sclav we knew but
the names for bare necessaries. At Spalato we had many opportunities of
observing the manners and customs of the mixed population of the
Dalmatian coasts.
The native Italians and Sclavs keep very much to themselves. There is
no society of any kind, and I cannot say I was in any way favourably
impressed with them. The Austrian garrison, officers and men, on the
other hand, created a very favourable impression. There is none of that
swagger and bounce which is too often displayed by the troops of some
nations we know of when in the midst of a subject alien and hostile
race. The officers are very gentlemanly-looking men, and the Hungarians
who were quartered here struck one by their jovial and kindly manners.
The Austrian officers much dislike service in this province; it is the
Siberia of Austria. The people do not speak their tongue, and will not
mix with them; and the upper classes studiously insult them, as far as
they dare. The Morlaks or Sclav peasantry are an interesting race, but
not much to be admired.
They are from all accounts great thieves and liars, and more backward,
I should say, than any people in Europe. They have no desire for
improvement. Any one who endeavours to introduce some new manufacture
or industry among them is treated with suspicion; every obstacle is
studiously thrown in his way.
The costumes of the male Morlaks are very picturesque, varying in
different districts. They wear the baggy trousers coming to the knee;
the embroidered vest and red sash of the East. In most parts the
head-dress is a skull-cap, flat at the top, sometimes red; generally
the colour is indistinguishable for the accumulated grease of years.
They wear _opunkas_ on their feet. These are sandals or slippers,
with turned-up toe; made of rough thongs of oxhide; they are tied to
the foot with straps of the same material. The Morlak is always
accompanied by his long pipe with its red clay bowl. He is also
addicted to smoking cigarettes through brightly painted wooden tubes
fully three feet in length. The dress of the women differs so much in
districts that it is impossible to give anything like a general
description of it; it is not unlike that of the Southern Italians.
They, too, wear the opunka.
The Morlaks have many strange superstitions and customs. To any one who
wishes to see in the life the barbarous manners of the Middle Ages in
all their picturesqueness, a voyage in these countries can be
recommended. However, the Austrians have eliminated one of the most
picturesque, if rather objectionable, features of the good old times.
Hordes of brigands no longer overrun Dalmatia; the vendetta is now
unknown; and travelling, if rough, is unattended with danger; and I may
add that Morlaks, despite their other faults, are exceedingly
hospitable, and will give up their one bed to the travelling stranger.
The women of this race are treated in true Eastern fashion; that is,
not much better than the beasts of burden.
As in the East, those of the higher class rarely leave their houses,
but sit lazily in their chamber acquiring a becoming pallor of
countenance and fatness of limb. A Sclav will not allude to his wife in
conversation without an apology for mentioning so low a thing. "My
wife, excuse me, sir," is the common way of bringing her into a
sentence. As in the East, too, the unchaste woman is regarded with
great abhorrence. What vice there may be has to conceal itself in dark
places, for the old punishment of the stoning is by no means unknown
here. In the towns of Albania, this outward show of morality--for that
is all it really is, just as in the old days, when the virtuous man to
throw the first stone was not to be found--is still more ferociously
demonstrative, cases of guilty parties of both sexes having been torn
to pieces by the mob being of not unfrequent occurrence there.
The following incident happened shortly before our arrival at Scutari.
A Turkish officer of police, who had carried on a flirtation with the
German servant of a foreign consul, was discovered, seized by several
men, and beaten till he fainted with his wounds, and was left by them
for dead.
The next day was Sunday. Hiring a trap, we drove, with our two friends,
along a good road, across a wine-producing country, commanding pleasant
views of sea and mountain, to Salona--the old Roman city--the
birthplace of Diocletian. It is but four miles from Spalato. As we
approached it we saw, some miles off inland, on a precipitous buttress
of the mountain, the ancient and impregnable fortress of Clissa,
commanding the approach to Spalato from the Herzegovina.
Salona is situated on the sloping ground at the head of the deep and
beautiful inlet of the sea, which bears the same name. The ruins have
been excavated, and there are no important remains to be seen, for the
town was thoroughly sacked and destroyed by the Gothic hordes. It was
from Salona, in 544, that Belisarius set out to rescue Italy from
Totila and his Goths. The town had withstood several sieges. Attila
himself is reported to have once captured it. Having for years enjoyed
peace, lulled into a false and fatal sense of security, the Salonites,
the historian tells us, gradually fell into a state of incredible
luxury and sensuality. This was the Sybaris of the East. At last the
day of trial came, and the effete citizens were found to be incapable
of defending their homes against the hardier foe.
The Avars overran Dalmatia in the year 639.
Salona easily fell into the hands of the Barbarians. The sinful city
was plundered and burnt to the ground; and where stood its stately
theatres and temples, there is now but an uninhabited wilderness.
Its site commands a splendid view over the blue gulf, and dark, far
mountains. This day, at this season of the year, when a brown tint was
on the tangled groves, and a purple bloom on the grapes, while a fresh
sea wind sighed through the desolate ruins, the general effect was very
impressive.
Here we wandered a couple of hours or so through vines and brushwood,
the fallen walls of houses, tombs, shattered friezes and columns
meeting us at every turn. Nearly everywhere, on raking off the thin
layer of overlying rubbish, beautiful tessalated pavements are
disclosed to view. The Morlak peasantry crowded round us and sold to
us, at ridiculously low prices, coins of the Diocletian era, vases and
beautiful lacrymals, irridescent and scaling off with age. Several were
melted out of shape by the fires of that fierce sacking more than a
thousand years ago.
The Roman aqueduct which supplied the palace of Diocletian, at Spalato,
with water, is still in very fair repair.
The modern city suffers much from want of water. This necessary has to
be carted in from a long distance.
The restoration of the old aqueduct has been decided on; and to have
come to a decision will suffice the Dalmatians for some years to come.
It is to be hoped that the plan will ultimately be carried out. "The
Spalatans will then have no excuse left for not washing themselves;" so
I said to Mr. Vigneau, innocently. "Oh, you don't know them," said he;
"they will discover that washing opens the pores, and renders them more
susceptible to the _trebesine_ (the fever)."
The source of the _Gindro_, where commences the aqueduct, is well
worthy of a visit. About a mile from Salona--at the head of a wild and
beautiful well-wooded gorge down which this torrent flows--the further
progress of the traveller is barred by a precipitous wall of rock. At
the foot of this wall an enormous volume of ice-cold water rushes out
upwards from an orifice in the rock, filling up a deep, broad pool,
which foams and whirls as the spring spouts up from underneath with
incredible force, forming a dome of water on the surface. There is
something horrible in the Titanic forces and furious whirl, that makes
one dizzy; one cannot look down long. The water overflowing from the
pool partly feeds the aqueduct, which is carried along the slope of the
hill, and partly rushes down the gorge, turning on its way the huge
wheel of a flour-mill.
This mill we visited with M. Vigneau. The enterprising individual who
had started it seemed very disheartened. The latest machinery had been
brought hither at great cost. But this was too great a novelty for the
conservative Morlak peasantry, who resented and fought shy of the
innovation, preferring to grind their corn between two flat stones
picked up in the river bed, as their fathers did before them.
We drove home before sunset, as there was much fever about. There was
not a cottage near here that had not some of its occupants prostrated
by the _trebesine_.
Tuesday, September the 30th, was a great Dalmatian holiday. On foot, on
mule-back, in the rough waggons drawn by diminutive oxen, the peasantry
trooped in. The Morlaks are very fond of feasts. Every other day seems
to be dedicated to some saint or other, who would avenge himself were
he neglected. The working days are few, as M. Vigneau bitterly
complained.
I believe this peasantry still observes several feasts whose origin
dates back to Pagan times.
The holiday gave us a good opportunity of viewing the various costumes
of this country at their best.
Not least quaint were the Jews of Spalato. Some were long-bearded,
solemn-looking old fellows, dressed in the same sombre garb the Jews of
Venice wore when Shylock drove sharp bargains on the Rialto.
The groups that filled the narrow streets were very Eastern in
appearance. The pig-tailed Morlak, clad in his Sunday jacket; the
savage-looking Bosnian Turk, with turban, broad sash, and gay slippers;
the Greek sailors; all had an outlandish appearance, that told us we
were far from home--"from home and beauty" too, for of the latter there
was little to be seen at Spalato. I honestly saw no women who could,
with the grossest flattery, be called pretty, between Trieste and
Montenegro. And what can make one feel so alone in a strange land, as
the absence of fair women.
The Dalmatian Sclavs are unfortunately very fond of raising their
voices in song. A gang of youths would-walk down a street arm-in-arm,
shouting some native ballad. The music and singing of the East is
always of a melancholy character; but never have I heard anything so
dismal as the barbaric dirges of the Morlaks. The song is a sort of
monotonous chant, which has a peculiar querulous complaining spirit in
it; and yet a suppressed and timorous complaining, as of slaves that
had not for centuries known what independence and freedom was.
How different is the song of the free Montenegrin (of the same race as
the Morlak). It is of the same monotonous character, but has a go and
energy in it, inspired as it is with the warlike feats of their heroes
in the present as well as in the past--not a song of regret for some
by-gone greatness, but an exultation in the brave and illustrious now.
Each verse of a Morlak song dies away in a long and sad howl, followed
by a silence, before the next verse is taken up. This produces a
peculiarly depressing effect.
Our arrival was pretty well known all over the town, for strangers are
not frequent, especially Englishmen. The citizens, who could not
conceive any one being mad enough to travel for amusement, especially
in their country, discussed us curiously. M. Vigneau told us he had,
several times each day, to give a long narrative of the lives,
pursuits, &c., of Brown and myself, in order to satisfy the eager
inquirers.
On hearing that we intended to visit Albania, the verdict always was,
"They will not come back"--this with a meaning shrug of the shoulders.
I have, on more than one occasion found, when I have left England for
some unknown and supposed dangerous country, that as I gradually neared
it the reports and accounts of the perils of that land became less and
less alarming. For "distance" lends terror as well as enchantment "to
the view."
In the case of Albania, however, the nearer we approached it the worse
was the reputation of its fierce inhabitants for murder and robbery;
the more earnestly were we warned against travelling in such a
cut-throat region. This was not an encouraging sign. However, the best
plan is ever to go on as far as one can, and believe little one hears.